Supporting Peace Negotiation and Mediation on Track I: Working Towards Comprehensive Peace Agreements

This course targets staff in peace operations, working on peace processes and looking to enhance their understanding of negotiation and mediation techniques. Whether they are mediators themselves or are supporting a mediation process is irrelevant. Important techniques include interpersonal and communication skills that allow experts to manage conflict effectively.

The international community is increasingly striving to assist parties in conflict in resolving their disagreements in a constructive manner. By carrying out mediation processes and assisting with negotiations or supporting national dialogue processes, international organizations are working with conflict parties and societies as a whole to find sustainable solutions that are implementable in a post-conflict context. Supporting such reform processes requires a variety of skills that experts increasingly need to work in the context of multilateral peace operations or similar forms of engagements in crisis areas.

It is therefore essential for any person involved in a peace process, whether as a mediator or when assisting in such efforts, to have a good understanding of negotiation dynamics and mediation techniques. Such techniques include, among others, communication and interpersonal skills used to effectively deal with conflict.

This training course concentrates on mediation and negotiation efforts on a comprehensive peace agreement that take place once a ceasefire agreement has been reached. A particular focus is on the design of Track 1 processes and the resulting challenges for mediators and mediation teams. Moreover, the course emphasises the role of international organisations (UN, EU, OSCE) and their capacities to support mediation processes.

Please note that this course is not an introductory course on mediation and requires participants to already have some basic knowledge and ideally some experience with mediation, mediation support or related activities. The course is participatory and interactive and allows participants to apply the techniques through simulations and practical exercises. The course language is English.

The course is developed and implemented together with the Berghof Foundation, which has extensive experience in the field of international mediation and mediation support. The trainers are practitioners and mediators with experience in international crisis situations.

After successful completion of the course, participants will:

• Have an overview of the development of peace processes and identify where mediation and mediation support can make an important contribution to the transformation of conflict;

• Understand which factors can strengthen mediation processes and increase the success of implementation and sustainability of an ensuing agreement;

• Have developed a stronger methodological focus on mediation and negotiation fundamentals, leading to better strategies for third-party support to the negotiation of peace agreements;

• Be able to effectively use communication and trust-building techniques and micro-skills required to successfully conduct mediation and mediation support activities;

• Be able to effectively identify the challenges of supporting the negotiation of agreements, such as the involvement of “hard-to-reach” actors and conflict party asymmetry;

• Recognise and consider the influence of external factors, i.e. outside framework conditions, on a mediation process and its implementation.

The course is open to experts (civilian, police and military) working in peace operations or other international organisations who have previous experience in the field of mediation or mediation support. This is not an introductory course in mediation and requires participants to be familiar with basic mediation concepts in the international context.

Please note that we require a short motivation statement (max. 300 words, in English), which must be uploaded to the ZIFdatabase. Your statement should address the following guiding questions:

• What is your prior experience with mediation/negotiation processes and/or mediation support?

• Why is the course relevant to your current/future work, and how can you apply its contents in your professional context?

Venue:

hotel in Berlin

Course fee:

• Members of ZIF Expert Pool: €220 (including full room and board)

• External participants: €990 (including full room and board)

The course fee covers the cost of full room and board during the training. As the course programme is designed to include informal evening events, it is recommended that you stay at the designated course hotel. The course fee will not be reduced if you choose not to stay at the official training location. Insurance and travel costs are not included in the course fee and will not be reimbursed.

ZIF offers a limited number of scholarships for national staff of UN, EU and OSCE missions. For more information on those scholarship opportunities, please contact the ZIF contact person for this course.

ZIF Trainings:

ZIF trainings are practice-oriented and reflect the operational reality of peace operations and (post-)conflict areas through exercises, role plays and scenario-based courses. Moreover, our trainings focus on the main areas of competence outlined in the ZIF Concept "Civilian Expert". Additionally, we base our courses on contemporary concepts of adult education and peer learning. We try to create a joint learning space where participants and the training team can exchange freely and critically, and which provides room for self-reflection. Another important goal of our courses is to encourage a change of perspective. One way of achieving this is by mainstreaming the comprehensive approach (civilian, police, military), which is made possible through our cooperation within the German Training Partner Platform.